I See London, I See France

Clearly, Hayden doesn't have enough underwear.

My Grandma Water had this crazy need to have an insane amount of underwear in her dresser at all times.  I'm not talking about a little drawer full.  Oh no, she had one of those LARGE dresser drawers (the ones that hold your shorts or t-shirts) completely full of underwear, some even new in the package.  It stemmed from her childhood and only having two pairs.  She would have to wait while her underwear was washed and dried.  She talked about in the winter it having to dry on the wood burning stove door and having to put on damp underwear.  Talk about freezing your buns off!

We used to tease her incessantly about it.  Pretty much every time she went to Wal-Mart, she came back with a new package of white Hanes underwear.  She always bought the same kind.  As she got older and didn't go to the store as often, my mom and I would buy her some to make sure her stock was never depleted.  When she went to Heaven, we were able to donate (no joke) probably 20 new packages of underwear to charity. 

My Mom has this theory that whatever you think didn't have enough of as a child, you make up for when you're an adult.  For my Grandma, it was underwear.  For Chip, it's tennis shoes (he had plenty as a child, he just has a completely excessive amount now.  I counted them, he has twenty one pairs right now in our closet of just tennis shoes).  One of my friends was only allowed one box of name brand cereal a year, on her birthday.  If you look in her pantry now, she has at least five different boxes of kid cereal.

Evidently, some quirks/obsessions are genetic.  Hayden has a drawer full of underwear.  At first, he needed a larger size so we bought a few packages.   Then, he was dry at night so he got to pick some out.  After that, he wanted some boxer briefs "like Daddy" so we added some variety.  He loved that all of his underwear has a "pee pee flap" like Daddy's and that they are all 4T (he recently moved up a size in shirts and pants, so he now checks the sizes on EVERYTHING he wears to make sure that they are a 4T or bigger).  Then, we went to the new Sam's Club with my parents on Saturday.  He "needed" new underwear, as he didn't have "that kind" of Disney ones or the turtle (Teenage Mutant - which he has never even seen) ones.  My parents are like any grandparent and indulged his wishes - so we can home with 16 pairs of new underwear.  Not counting what's in the dirty clothes (and he changes his underwear twice a day), he has 61 pairs.  That is INSANE!  The good news is - he won't run out anytime soon and Dawson can wear them one day.

I know that right now, my Grandma Water is in Heaven just smiling from ear to ear about this story.  If she were here, I can guarantee you that she would be buying Hayden more underwear- just to tease me.  Around here, Santa puts socks and underwear in the stockings.  Looks like he better buy the next size up!